> Not all (or even, I would wager, most) were anti-immigration working class voters.
If you re-read the above you'll see that I didn't claim to have data on the matter. I'm perfectly open to the idea that a large share of the leave vote is anti-immigration (although that sentiment itself has a broad range of meanings from intolerant to reasoned), but my point was to highlight the perception of leave voters as being generally xenophobic members of the working class as being inaccurate or at the very least, a broad stroke of the brush. Through discussing the vote with the other leavers I know, not once was immigration mentioned as a concern, and we all work in average-to-senior software roles, not Dave the van man who rants about Polish people coming for his job.
Oh ok, so just anti-immigration? Not anti-immigration and working class?
Your anecdotal evidence is not very useful in a reasonable discussion, and it might be more interesting to have a data based discussion (if you have some data).
You seem intent on painting a picture more than reading what I actually wrote:
>Through discussing the vote with the other leavers I know, not once was immigration mentioned as a concern
You seem to be a bit obsessed with backing everything with data. Do you want me to make a survey for the people I've spoken to? I'm not trying to say "immigration is not the issue and I have proof!", I'm saying that immigration isn't the issue for everyone, and that there are people in the main HN - reading demographic (and more than just me and the 5 I know, although I'm sure you're going to ask for a citation) that A. Don't match the image in your head and B. Didn't vote the way they did as some kind of attempt to lock out immigrants.
Your suggestion that discussions can only be had by providing data is just not true. If I were trying to assert a claim large enough to need a sample size then sure, but I'm not.
Your claim here seems to be that there are >1 people who voted for Brexit for reasons other than immigration.
That is reasonably obvious, and not useful basis for a discussion on Brexit.
If you want to gain a better understanding of why people in general voted for Brexit, data would be valuable. Everything else is anicdotal, and not very useful.
I guess that depends on whether your primary concern is getting a handle on the majority vote and the demographic involved, where poorer people voted for a mix of reducing immigration and returning legal sovereignty to British courts, or surfacing the opinions of those who voted leave despite those not being primary concerns and who are in the same income demographic as HN readers who seem to believe that people in their class don't vote Brexit. If you're not interested in the latter then I don't have anything to show you.
If you re-read the above you'll see that I didn't claim to have data on the matter. I'm perfectly open to the idea that a large share of the leave vote is anti-immigration (although that sentiment itself has a broad range of meanings from intolerant to reasoned), but my point was to highlight the perception of leave voters as being generally xenophobic members of the working class as being inaccurate or at the very least, a broad stroke of the brush. Through discussing the vote with the other leavers I know, not once was immigration mentioned as a concern, and we all work in average-to-senior software roles, not Dave the van man who rants about Polish people coming for his job.